{"id":25850,"date":"2019-06-08T03:30:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-08T10:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=25850"},"modified":"2019-06-06T12:26:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T19:26:22","slug":"june-8-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2019\/06\/08\/june-8-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"June 8, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\u201cThen the LORD said to me, \u2018Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Hosea 3:1<\/p>\n

Go and Love<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Israel\u2019s relationship with God was broken. In spite of Israel\u2019s harlotry, God would prove Himself faithful to His covenant with His people. In the same manner, God used His prophet, Hosea, to keep his covenant with his wife, Gomer.<\/p>\n

This Scripture has long intrigued me. Generally, when it\u2019s brought up in a discussion, everyone focuses on the obvious: Gomer was a prostitute.\u00a0<\/em>We feel sorry for poor Hosea, seemingly forced to marry a harlot<\/em>. What man in his right mind would want to marry such a woman?<\/p>\n

What I find to be intriguing are the words \u201cGo again, love a woman\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/em>God didn\u2019t tell him to tolerate her. He didn\u2019t say to put conditions on her before she\u2019s good enough to come home. He told Hosea to love\u00a0<\/em>her. The Hebrew word for love,\u00a0ahava<\/em>, means to give<\/em>. Hosea had already married Gomer; she left him to return to her former life. God commanded Hosea to not only take her back\u2014he had to buy her. This command to love her came when she had already proven herself to be unfaithful. Hosea was obedient and got his wife back.<\/p>\n

Not much seems to be known about Gomer. We don\u2019t know why she was in that lifestyle, but I can\u2019t help but wonder: Did she suffer abuse as a child? Was she sold by her father? Or was she, as we tend to think, just bad<\/em>? I have read that her mother was also a prostitute. I\u2019m willing to bet that no matter what the reason, she must have been filled with self-loathing. And then here comes Hosea, who is purposing\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0love\u00a0<\/em>her. I imagine she felt unworthy. So many of us haven\u2019t gone through the extreme lifestyle Gomer went through, yet still we walk in our supposed unworthiness.<\/p>\n

Another interesting part of this story is the meaning of the names of our main characters. Hosea\u00a0<\/em>means salvation<\/em>, and Gomer\u00a0<\/em>means completion<\/em>. Just as God kept His covenant with Israel, Hosea gave Gomer his name and protection. He saved her from her humiliating lifestyle, loved her, and brought their story to completion. Jesus does the same for you. You are redeemable, worthy, and loved.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLord, You love Israel, You loved Gomer, and you certainly love us! Please show us how to walk confidently in Your love, even when we deem ourselves unworthy. Thank You for Your redemption! In Jesus\u2019 name. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-6IW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25851,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25850\/revisions\/25851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}